Decent design and build quality (though it's plastic - would have been nice to see a metal or glass design)

Has a new, modern 'infinity edge' 18:9 AMOLED display, that stretches from edge-to-edge, and makes the device easy to use with one hand

The Samsung Experience UI skin on top of Android is a pretty decent skin and packs a lot of features - there’s Bixby, Face Recognition, which works fine and there are features like themes, game launcher, Samsung Pay mini, Samsung Cloud, games launcher, one handed mode and more

Decent dual camera setup on the rear - especially in proper lighting conditions, the camera takes good images, and low-light performance is not too bad either

Very good battery life - the big 3500 mAh battery, combined with the low power Snapdragon 450 processor and a 720p HD+ display gives you a recipe for some very good battery life - the phone comfortably lasts a whole day and if you use it judiciously, you can even make it last for two days

Beautiful, elegant notch-based full screen design (that is clearly inspired from the iPhone X) - the device feels slick in the hand, with subtle curves on the back - and it looks great

In terms of the ease of using the one-handed, the Vivo V9 actually goes one up on the iPhone X - it packs a bigger screen (6.2 inches) - and is still feels incredibly easy to use one hand

Fast fingerprint sensor

Facial recognition to unlock works very well too

The tall 19:9 display is bright and vibrant, and ticks all the right boxes

Vivo's custom Android UI (Funtouch) is very inspired from iOS too - it works decently well, although a lot of Android users do tend to prefer close-to-stock Android UIs

The UI also brings in a new gesture based navigation system, that operates without buttons (a la iPhone X), and thus gives you even more screen real estate to play with - the system itself is not too difficult to get a hang of - so it works out pretty well - and makes navigation on the V9 feel more 2018 than getting around on, say, a Samsung Galaxy S9 with its standard touch buttons

Decent set of rear and front cameras, especially in daylight - colors are accurate, dynamic range is slightly above average, and the camera focuses relatively fast - of course, photo quality falls quite a bit short when compared to an iPhone X or Galaxy S9 - but for the price range, it's decent

Decent battery life - will last the day with moderate use

Dedicated Dual SIM and MicroSD card slots

On the whole, the Vivo V9 is an all-round good device in this price range - especially for people who are more interested in a great design, great screen, and decent cameras - at the cost of a little bit of raw performance power

2-minute Review [Negatives]

No ambient light sensor, which is a big miss at this price point

Fingerprint & face recognition is on the slow side

While the display is pretty decent, it could have had better resolution

The display also has significant bezels, whereas a lot of modern phones with tall displays these days have very little bezels

Also lacks a notification LED

Average performance considering the price bracket, thanks to the budget Snapdragon 450 at the core, which is these days more commonly seen in phones under Rs 10k - while day to day performance is alright, but push the phone a bit and it will start to stutter - moreover, the Samsung Experience 9.0 has a ton of unnecessary and sluggish animations, that don't help

The dual rear camera setup is decent, but the portrait mode is pretty mediocre, with very ordinary edge detection - the blurring feels mostly unnatural

The speaker is both oddly placed (on the right side of the phone) and tiny and cracks at higher volume

No fast charging support

No compass

Uses the old micro-USB standard instead of a modern USB Type-C port

On the whole, the Samsung Galaxy J8 is hard to recommend - the likes of Redmi Note 5 Pro and ZenFone Max Pro bring faster processors, better displays and more premium designs, and now with the Poco F1 around the block, the J8 is an even harder sell

The Funtouch Android UI continues to come pre-installed with about six or seven bloatware apps - which could have been avoided

While the performance is good in regular use, the Snapdragon 626 chipset inside is not the best of the pack in this price bracket